Living Haiti

Sometimes it seems nothing is easy…

I haven’t written in a few days because I kept waiting for the end of the story before I started to tell it…but it seems that end of the story might be a little bit down the road. While I’m in Haiti I’ll be working on a lot of different things. It’s been a bit frustrating the past few days because it just seems like nothing comes easy. Nothing works the way you think it will. That’s part of the “charm” of Port Au Prince. When travelling with my friends here, we’ve always had a saying, “hurry up and wait.” This seems to be the new theme of my life.

Shortly after arriving here I began the process of trying to get a passport for a young girl at the orphanage who needs to have some medical work. She has everything she needs for the medical visa, except the passport. You would think it would be easy to get the right paperwork together for such a thing. That’s what I thought when I started, but I was oh so wrong. This girl’s mother has died and her father has given her to the orphanage because he is unable to care for her. He

has been pretty cooperative in trying to help us get the paperwork we need. Because she still has

a birth parent living it is necessary for us to have him with us in the process…I think…at least that’s what they tell me. Many days in the past three weeks have involved me getting up, putting on dress clothes to go to the Immigration/Emigration offices, trying to hunt down the father, making sure he has everything he needs, packing the father and daughter into a car and trekking across PAP in horrible traffic to get to the offices. There is always a HUGE line of people waiting to get in, but since I am holding a child, people assume we’re there for adoption and let us in right away. We push through lines until we reach the office of the director, where we sit with paperwork and wait for something…as far as I can tell there is no real system. Maybe there is, but I’ve spent hours in this office and can’t seem to figure it out. From what I can tell, the “secretaries” let you in when they feel like it, and if they don’t feel like it, they don’t let you in. It’s in this office where I’m given the run around a million times, “you need this,” they say. I have it. So they tell me something else I need. I try to tell them I don’t really need that paper and that I just need them to help this little girl who is crippled. They won’t let me see the director…so we try other ways. I’ve had many moments where I’ve though they were going to help, and I’ve had many moments where I’ve completely lost it, both in English and in Kreyol…I only know like 30 words in Kreyol, so that’s probably fun to see. I’ve been asked to bribe people huge amounts of money, and I’ve been told it won’t cost a thing. I have been all around the city trying to hunt down paperwork, and here we sit three weeks later, still waiting. We’ll try again on Monday. I do think we’re getting closer, and eventually they’ll get so sick of seeing me that they’ll just give me the passport to shut the crazy American up. AND, after all of this we still have to wait a couple weeks for the visa. The doctors and guardians in the state have been waiting to help this girl since January. My personal goal is to get her to the states before Thanksgiving…we’ll see! She’s sweet, and probably has no idea what’s going on. The “process,” or lack thereof, is hard.

We’ve been trying to put in a transformer at the Guesthouse/orphanage so that we can get city electric. City electric in PAP is pretty notorious for not really working all that well, but in the area where we live, it’s not so bad. This will be huge as we spend almost 800 dollars a month to run the generator. Gas is not cheap here! Gertrude bought the parts they said she would need to install the transformer…she spent over $1000 dollars US. Of course when it came time to install it yesterday she was told that she would need to spend another $500 US in order to have ALL the parts. These might not seem like huge amounts of money to people in the states, but in Haiti, where people make 3 or 4 dollars a day…it’s HUGE. I wish I had bazillion dollars and could just help. It’s hard to watch friends struggle to make ends meet.

I’ve also been helping Gertrude’s sister try to get home. She is a nun in Tunisia and was in PAP for the funeral of her brother. If you can imagine, flying from Haiti to Africa is a bit of an ordeal. She’s a nun, and her family is Haitian. She has no money. I spent so much time trying to book her a ticket that didn’t cost a million dollars. We found one. She was supposed to leave today. She got to the airport and wasn’t allowed to board because even though her final destination was Rome, she flew through the States and did not have a US Visa…she was denied flight, and we’ve spent most of the day trying to figure out how to cancel flights so we don’t lose $680 dollars. It’s hard. I still don’t know how we’ll get her home.

Add to all of this the number of people starting school next week. Most schools cost between 300 and 500 dollars a year, plus the cost of books and uniforms. Many people have sponsors from the States, but I’m realizing how little we really understand the Haitian School system and how much the students still lack even if they do have a sponsor. Also, not easy.

All of this is incredibly frustrating, and I am a “fixer” by nature…to find things that you cannot fix is just annoying. But, it’s crazy…there’s always hope here. People don’t freak out. I freak out…Haitians don’t freak out, at least not that I can see. If I was turned away at the airport, you can bet I’ll be on the phone crying to my dad…but this lady handled it with amazing grace and poise. The passports haven’t come, the inconvenience drives me mad, but people here just try again. Today Gertrude gained her composure and did what she had to do to make this transformer work.

And a great story to end with. There is a little boy here that was thought to maybe be HIV positive. He’s had lots of tests and we had to wait 6 months to give this test to this little boy. I took him yesterday. He cries every time he sees me, so I wasn’t sure I was the right person to take him, but I did. I walked in to the lab, ordered the test and proceeded to the lab room. He sat on my lap. The man wrapped the band around his arm and searched for his vein…the child began to freak out. As soon as the needle pricked him he peed all over my lap…Yep, me covered in pee so a boy could have his HIV test. Today we got the results…NEGATIVE! NEGATIVE!!! This child who we thought had a devastating illness has tested negative. I couldn’t be more excited. Even in the midst of chaos, there is joy to be claimed and celebrated.
So…even though NOTHING seems to be easy here, I am happy to be here, and I am happy to call Haiti my home.